Phonic Helix18 Firewire MKII User Reviews at zZounds

Phonic Helix18FW MKII Customer Review submitted March 20, 2008

By a customer from gexpro.com

Overall

Sound

Features

Ease of Use

Quality

Value

Manufacturer Support

The Wow Factor

Musical Background: Active Musician

Music Style: Metal, Hardcore, Punk Rock

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Sound: i used to run sound for a small club and i used my mackie cfx20, we got this for the band to record demos and practice. great sound quality i can say i dont hear a difference bewteen the boards and mind you i paid over $1000 for the mackie when i got it new 10 years ago. Feature: does everything i need it to, easy to use. dont like cubse, mainly cause i dont know how to use it, i use magic studio 7 Ease of Use: super simple! installed drivers and we were recording within 30mins! Quality: shell is metal, great feeling of the faders and knobs. super quality!!! Value: similar systems were $200+ above this one cant beat it Manufacturer Support: havent used it, but im giving it a nine because the instruction manuel was very easy to read and figure out The Wow Factor: its a mixer... sorry but i will say its lived up to my expectations and then some! Overall: super great starter into both live sound and recording. ive used much more "sophisticated" equiptment for both and im loveing this machine. but this now!!!

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"This is the mixer you want!" submitted February 9, 2008

By a customer from comcast.net

Overall

Sound

Features

Ease of Use

Quality

Value

Manufacturer Support

The Wow Factor

Musical Background: Recording engineer, experienced musician

Music Style: Rock, acoustic, metal

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Sound: For a beginning studio without alot of cash to spend, this mixer sounds great! Of course more expensive boards are going to sound better, bhut this is beyond what I expected for the price. Feature: OK, so it doesn't light up like a Christmas Tree...what are you, five? This mixer gets the job done and there's plenty of channels for multi-tracking, and the firewire I/O is amazing. As for the included Steinberg Cubase, I personally tossed that aside and used Sonar 4. Ease of Use: Plug and play all the way! One snag that I had was not a problem with the board or the drivers, but a problem with either Vista, my PCMCIa card, or my Dell laptop's PCMCIA "special" slot. If you're trying to use this mixer with a laptop PC, you will probably have some issues unless it has a firewire port built in. Quality: I've heard people cry and complain that the "Sliders" (they're called FADERS, folks) have a little side to side give. Stop your crying and realize that this is not a DigiDesign board with automated faders. The faders are meant to go up and down, a little side to side give means you're not going to snap the faders off with your clumsy sausage fingers, and the up and down motion is snug. Value: You can not beat this mixer for the price. As I said, if you don't want to toast your wallet, get this mixer. It's great for recording and for live sound. Manufacturer Support: Haven't had to call them. Their website gets a bit wonky from time to time though. The Wow Factor: I give it a ten because when I look at it, I don't see a bunch of crap that's going to take me hours of reading the manual and months of practical use to get the hang of. This is a workhorse, plain and simple. Overall: I'm extremely pleased with this mixer! If I had a time machine and could travel back in time to the moment I bought this, I would tell myself to definitely buy this mixer...and to stop slouching.

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"Great deal IF it keeps working" submitted April 30, 2008

By a customer from hotmail.com

Overall

Sound

Features

Ease of Use

Quality

Value

Manufacturer Support

The Wow Factor

Musical Background: Active Musician and make-shift band Engineer

Music Style: Rock

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VERIFIED BUYER

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Sound: The headroom on the mic pre's aren't great. No where near "pro" level. Thin, hollow sound overall. Clipping happens pretty quickly when recording digitally, so watch your input level closely. At this price, it's what you'd expect. I'd love to put a really nice 8-channel analog or tube mic preamp in front of the board to see what it sounds like. Probably never get the option. Feature: It's a mixing board. It doesn't re-invent the idea of being a mixing board. Faders, pots, sub-groups, output jacks, etc. It gives ya 14 REAL inputs (no light-pipe "options"). 14 places to plug in an input source, built in effects, and firewire. For this price, that's a lot. Ease of Use: When it's working, it's pretty easy to use. Unfortunately I have sat for hours, turning the board on and off, restarting Logic Pro 7, and rebooting my G5 while my band mates sit and wait. Suck. Once it's working I've found you get about 4 hours or work time. Then it gets too hot or just decides to give you the hardware finger and call it a day. Quality: I don't think the product is well made. I think it is cheap, and you take a gamble for the price you pay. I got about 6 months of relatively trouble-free usage out of it. Took it from where I got it in the mail to the studio and never moved it. Never spilled beer on it (can't say that for all my gear) and it still pulled the plug on itself. Good luck. Value: This is the highest score because you can't beat the value. 14 firewire inputs (that's almost twice what most firewire i/o's offer at the same price), and if you're in a band that needs a mixing board, that's a twofer. Can't beat those options together. I just wish it didn't die on us. I likeed the board when it worked. Manufacturer Support: Told Phonic about the channels burning out. They sent the stock "check your connections" email back in hard to understand english. I'll probably just find someone local to take a look at it since it's warranty ran out while we were spit and rubberbanding it along to record our demo tracks. The Wow Factor: Nothing lowers an item's sexiness quotient more than looking like a Behringer product. NOTE: I also own a Behringer mixer, which has never lost a channel or blown out. It does sound like crap. Hey it's a Behringer! Overall: Searching for something else right now. I'll probably go really low-brow for recording practice songs like a $200 portable digital recorder. If this product were stolen, I'd let that thing go like day old sushi.

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Phonic Helix18 FireWire MKII 18-Channel Mixer

User Ratings

Phonic Helix18FW MKII Customer Review submitted March 20, 2008

"This is the mixer you want!" submitted February 9, 2008

"Great deal IF it keeps working" submitted April 30, 2008